Loki - S02E02 - Breaking Brad

[00:00:01] Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side. Green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life. So, we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to, like, pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:00:24] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod. But we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore. It was made for The Lorehounds. And since we just finished recapping season one,

[00:00:38] we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons. And with the season pass option in Supercast, listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene-by-scene deep dive, plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections.

[00:00:53] See you in The Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragonfire hot, but probably positive, takes. The Lorehounds' House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a hardened conflict with itself,

[00:01:06] and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning. Welcome to the MC Universe where the Lorehounds, your guides to the multiverse and beyond. I'm David. I'm John. And I'm Alicia.

[00:01:45] And we're ready to evacuate you to the sacred timeline before your branch is pruned forever. We'll be recapping and breaking down the second episode of Loki, Season 2, sharing Easter eggs and our current theories about what exactly is going on.

[00:01:58] And then John is going to walk us through an Easter egg or maybe a hint about the future plot in Comics Corner before we get to a little feedback. We'd also love to hear your thoughts about Loki as we discuss the rest of the season.

[00:02:11] Email your feedback to mcu at the lorehounds dot com or head over to our website at the lorehounds dot com and use the contact form or record us a voicemail. For ad-free versions of this in all of our podcasts,

[00:02:24] check us out at patreon dot com slash the lorehounds. I'll share more about that as well as notes about our upcoming programming schedule at the end of the podcast. Also, we'd be grateful if you could help us get more ears tuned into the Lorehounds MC Universe.

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[00:02:53] And before we get started, just a quick spoiler warning. We'll of course be spoiling all of Loki episodes up to and including the one we're talking about today. But spoilers from the rest of the MCU and the Marvel comics are also on the table.

[00:03:06] All right, John and Alicia, welcome back. Episode two feels like we're cooking with gas. How are you guys feeling? Oh, I'm feeling good. It's nice to be watching a show that excites me. Yeah, absolutely. You put a smile on my face.

[00:03:21] Not that I haven't had some recent ones, but obviously the last MC one, we won't speak of it. Thank you. Yes, we don't want to say those words. Cool. So before we get into our hot takes, which will be spoiler free,

[00:03:37] Alicia, can you break down the episode a little bit? Give us some of the inside technical details. Yeah, so this episode is called Breaking Bread. Ha ha, I see what you did there. It was written by Eric Martin, who's basically the head writer of the season,

[00:03:50] although I don't think Marvel really uses that title yet. But yeah, he was also the main writer for last week and will be going forward. It was directed this time though by Dan DiLeo. So this is a one-off directorial gig. And as I said, there were two episodes

[00:04:06] not directed by Benton and Moorhead and it's this one and the next one. So yeah, Dan DiLeo, he's an interesting guy to watch his career because he's homegrown talent that they've been growing within the MCU. He started on the CGI side as a technical director.

[00:04:20] For Marvel, he worked on Iron Man 3. He did overall VFX for Winter Soldier, which was his first Oscar nom. And then yeah, he had a good collaboration with the Russo brothers with Civil War and he also got nominated for Oscars for Infinity War and Endgame, his team.

[00:04:39] Yeah, he even became a second unit director on Endgame. So he's been moving in that direction. He also was a second unit director on Eternals, which movie I love, and Quantumania. He was a production side supervisor for Loki season one,

[00:04:53] but this was his first time acting as a lead director. Okay, that's cool. I like the fact that they're starting to develop some in-house talent like that. And you've got some more notes here about writers and directors. We've got some inside industry related news. What's going on?

[00:05:11] The discord's been all abuzz about this on Twitter, of course, that Daredevil is getting a total reset. Basically all the writers and directors were fired from Daredevil Born Again and they're starting from scratch. They're reportedly not happy with the story.

[00:05:25] It was going to be a sort of lawyer procedural. So probably wouldn't make Netflix fans happy is the idea. Okay, a little too close or? No, too far away. Oh, interesting. But yeah, and it was also rumored that maybe they were going to say in the first episode

[00:05:47] that iconic characters Foggy and Karen had died, which would have maybe caused riots. And also, yeah, so Daredevil, because of that, he had given up the suit and he wouldn't appear in his suit until episode four. And they were just like, this just isn't working.

[00:06:02] We're just starting over. We know there was going to be 18 episodes of that one and they were going to split it into two or three chunks, but maybe that'll change now. But yeah, it's part of an overall strategy that apparently they're changing things.

[00:06:16] They say they're going to have showrunners now, which is something they didn't have. It was just sort of like Foggy half acting as every showrunner, which is impossible. And they're going to have pilots and just do things. They're like, okay, we finally get the TV

[00:06:30] is not the same as movies. You can't produce it the same way. Oh, I think. Interesting idea. Here's a new concept. Yeah. So maybe this explains the delay that we talked about last week until 2025 for Daredevil. But yeah, with the SAG Afterstrikes going on now

[00:06:50] and VFX strikes may be a danger because Marvel VFX voted to unionize last month. And the last time their parent company, like their parents union, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the last time they faced off with the AMPTP, they negotiated a temporary three-year contract,

[00:07:11] which ends late next year. Okay. We're in for some more bumpy road stuff here. Yeah. I just can't help but think that this structure with the AMPTA is really a big source of problems because they're incentivized to hold down costs as a percentage.

[00:07:34] And I think that's how the individual people at the AMPTA get their bonuses and all their kudos is by keeping it squeezed down. Whereas Netflix, Amazon, and Apple are completely different animals compared to an MGM or a Paramount or a Hulu. I don't know.

[00:07:56] Hulu is kind of a weird one, but they're not traditional. Those three, those big three are not traditional movie studios. They sell toilet paper and watches. Entertainment is their sidekick, except for Netflix. But they're a technology company as much as anything from their core, from their roots.

[00:08:15] They have a novel distribution method. That's what got them where they are. Right. So the system doesn't seem to be... I don't know, maybe we need some pruning sticks down. I don't know. That's not nice to say. But anyway, yeah, it's frustrating, isn't it?

[00:08:31] Well, I think that is kind of happening through... They're using the strikes as excuses to change, for instance, the way writers... Obviously, writers have certain protections now, but they're not going to be... We were listening to recently on The Town,

[00:08:47] the podcast we often like to reference on the Ringer Network. And they were talking about how writers are going to not get the same all-inclusive deals they used to get. It's going to be rarer. Right. Which is... The all-inclusive deals is a new old thing because you used

[00:09:03] to be signed with a studio back in the golden age, right? And then that changed in the 70s. And you could... When I think Congress passed some laws that forced the market into... You had producers, people who write scripts and do that kind of stuff.

[00:09:21] And then you'd have production companies and then have studios. And so you had a marketplace at different levels. Oh, and distribution. Distribution was the big one. So studios couldn't distribute. But then that was deregulated. And so now you can get a Disney or a Netflix that writes,

[00:09:39] produces, and distributes all in one rather than having marketplaces in between the elements so that you actually had an economy happening. So anyway, I don't know how we're getting over here on this side. It's important stuff though. Yeah.

[00:09:54] Didn't you say there was a voicemail from Dork of the Ninjas on this topic? Yeah. Dork of the Ninjas wrote in and a friend of the pod and long-time listener. And he's got a voicemail about the Daredevil stuff. So let's take a listen to that really quick.

[00:10:38] Get new writers, get new directors, and just see what they can do to start fresh. The biggest thing is I'll say this is almost like a form of encouraging because the fact is it's like they're starting to have the internal review

[00:10:47] of like, hey, our product hasn't been up to snuff lately. We don't want another secret invasion on our hands. So they're just restarting it a little bit from scratch on that one. And one of the things that came out as a result of this,

[00:10:59] they said that they are going to be switching forward to a more traditional showrunner situation instead of having a situation where Kevin Feige is kind of like the showrunner but not the showrunner because that's kind of how it's been lately. Right.

[00:11:14] I'm enjoying Loki, everything I've seen so far. I just watched episode two last night and overall had a really good time with it. It wasn't as good as episode one, but I enjoyed the playful banter of Loki with Mobius as well, of course.

[00:11:30] We're just looking hopefully to see going forward with Marvel, they're going to switch to trying to make sure they produce their TV shows more like TV shows instead of the way they've been producing them lately,

[00:11:41] which is more like movies that have been stretched out and cut up into multiple episodes. Hopefully that's the case going forward, that they kind of let creative TV directors and writers do what they should normally do

[00:11:55] with a TV show instead of trying to force a movie into a TV show format. Just wanted to hear what your guys' thoughts were on all this and have a good one. Awesome. Thanks, Michael. I appreciate that.

[00:12:06] Just a reminder, yeah, you can drop us a voicemail by going to our website and going to the contact form. What did you guys think of Michael's voicemail, Jean? No, I agree with everything that he said. Just happy that they're taking TV as TV,

[00:12:23] and not doing everything that they want to change in post-production, making a show that's supposed to be one thought into many different thoughts after the fact. Right. Alicia, have you listened to the Joanna Robinson interview on The Watch podcast about her co-authored MCU book?

[00:12:47] Yes. No, I guess not. No, no, not that one. Not yet? Yeah, I started listening to it the other day. I've heard her in a few. She's been popping up in a few places. Of course. She's on a book tour right now. Yes, she's on a book tour.

[00:12:59] Something that was interesting that I heard her say, well, when they were talking about this, was that the Thanos plot line was an afterthought. It was kind of a, oh, hey, wouldn't it be fun if we threw Thanos in there? Oh, sure. Why not?

[00:13:14] Oh, hey, let's make it into a whole thing. And then how we got the MCU as the MCU, starting out from just a handful of different movies trying to recycle the IP. So it's interesting to watch the MCU going through these evolutions.

[00:13:30] Like Michael said, if they're now coming around and seeing TV as TV, as opposed to a time loom, maybe, that's trying to force feed a whole bunch of stuff into a single go here fall. That's a good metaphor. Yeah, it just came to me there.

[00:13:45] Yeah, I don't know. I think you guys, I think we might have to get that book. I think it might be a really interesting set of information for us to appreciate. Yeah, and again, I'm just happy that they're doing away with what they've done,

[00:14:02] especially if they do away with what they call the parliament from that Hollywood Reporter article. Just reading that made my skin crawl. You know what I mean? Get outside of yourselves and let the people who know how to do things, do the things they know how to do.

[00:14:21] Yes, please let people do their jobs. I mean, it's important for studios to have notes and there's constraints. You want a good business model. You have to be realistic. Of course. Creative process that works. But this five-person parliament that swoops in to make the changes.

[00:14:37] Give me a break. Come on. And that's what I think is, and I'm on record quite a lot about Star Wars having the same drawback, which is there's too much corporate control, corporate-minded control. We have to protect the brand. We have to protect this thing.

[00:14:57] They've also spent, how much do they pay to buy the rights for that? Same with Marvel. They put out a lot of cash that they've got to pay back. So if they're trying to make properties that can splash out to the biggest,

[00:15:10] widest audience possible when a show or a movie releases, you're then watering down the content. So it's not interesting. And so if studio is worried about driving the return as opposed to putting out a good product,

[00:15:27] you're going to end up with a bad product because you're not thinking about making quality. You're thinking about making money. And what makes money is good product. Right, right. Most of the time. You're driving people crazy. Most of the time.

[00:15:41] There's a lot of short-term thinking involved too, which, yeah. So hopefully they're starting to think more long-term. But one interesting other bit of tidbit from the news is that Eric Martin, the head writer, as I said, so to speak,

[00:15:57] he said that there was a character or characters that he wanted to use in Loki season two, but couldn't because they were being used elsewhere. And my mind has been spinning ever since on what it could be. Theories? You guys have theories? I have three theories. Okay.

[00:16:14] One is. Do you have theories? I'm curious if Sean has theories too. I do. I do, especially because of what we saw in episode. Okay, so let's do a theory off here. Okay. Sean, what's your theory? It's the same as what you've written down, the first one, Thor.

[00:16:28] Thor. Yeah. All right. Why did you say that? Just because the use of the character that they use in the story has a meaning to that particular Marvel character. So it's like, they don't do things normally as a throwaway. You know what I mean?

[00:16:49] It's like, okay, we're going to use this person to introduce another person. Yeah. That's pretty standard practice. Yeah. So I was really like, oh, okay. When I went and did the homework on the character and I was like, ah, oh, okay.

[00:17:05] And I was waiting to see when he popped up in the series and that he popped up so early made me think that they wanted to use Thor in some way, in some capacity for the show. Yeah.

[00:17:20] I mean, it's for Loki's character arc, of course we want to see him. It's not even reuniting with his brother because it's a brother from a different timeline. From a different timeline, yeah. Yeah. And they did bring up his mother. Brad drops that about his mother.

[00:17:35] And so like you say, Sean, that is if you hear references outside of things, that's a pretty strong clue, right? That there's throwing a thread. Yeah. But if he's being used elsewhere, where do you think that might be? Man, I don't know.

[00:17:52] I didn't think about it into what other properties that they're currently shooting that he might be a part of. That's something I haven't been able to thought of. Or maybe it's just too close or something. Yeah.

[00:18:04] Or maybe they want to have a Thor-Loki reunion on, like in the cinema. Right. Yeah. Instead of on TV. Right. Because they've got to be making Thor 5 now that they've teased Bret Goldstein as Hercules. Like, come on, please.

[00:18:19] I mean, again, we don't know what's coming down the pipe because everything is just up in the air. So who knows what they're going to do in the next two, three years. But for what we know they're shooting, could Thor be a part of any of those?

[00:18:34] I don't necessarily think so. Not in the shows that we know that are coming up. Like Echo. Does he have a cameo in the Marvels? I mean... I mean, yeah. That's a possibility. I'm not sure. I mean, it's a possibility. You never know. They surprise you sometimes. Yeah.

[00:18:54] Exactly. Did you have some more theories, Alicia? Yeah. Well, another one that I can't help but notice is that they have purposely designed the TVA logo so that it looks like Val when it's upside down.

[00:19:05] Like they even have one of the arms off the T and they have it completed by... And they made the A and the V look the same. And they keep showing it to us in the exit credits. Yeah, that's the two cats. Yeah. This Val.

[00:19:19] So are you saying it spells Val or it's a symbol for Val? It spells Val. It spells the word Val when you... Yeah, I posted a picture in the Discord if anyone's curious. Okay.

[00:19:31] But yeah, the way it's designed, it looks very intentional that they made it so it's interchangeable and they show in the exit credits like there's a record spinning and it zooms in on it when it's upside down. They show it a lot. You're right. Yeah. They totally do.

[00:19:46] Oh, I see it now. I saw your picture here. Yeah. Totally. So yeah. So I'm keeping an eye on that. I would love that. That would be really fun. And that's Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, right? Yes. That's who we were talking about. Yes. Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Dreyfus. Yeah. Cool.

[00:20:02] And then my other theory is just Moon Knight because they have the same directors and there's been Easter eggs back and forth between those two shows. Well, I mean, at least there was like the Kang Easter egg in Moon Knight.

[00:20:16] But maybe they're shooting a Moon Knight season two? Fingers crossed. Okay. Interesting theory. We'll have to... Moon Knight's one of my favorite of the shows. So yeah. Cool. John, you were okay on Moon Knight, right? Yeah, I was. I was.

[00:20:34] It wasn't my favorite, but it was cool for what it is. I'm not a big Mark Spector fan. That's the crux of my issues with Moon Knight. Like his whole backstory, I'm not a fan of that. But yeah.

[00:20:47] What do you guys think about maybe talking about Loki now that we're 20 minutes into our podcast? Let's do some hot takes all around and then we'll take a break. These will be spoiler free.

[00:21:00] So again, if you haven't watched the episode, you can listen up until now and if you're trying to catch up or whatever. And then after the break, we'll get into a breakdown. So John, why don't you lead us off? Yeah, I love this episode.

[00:21:14] I thought it was really... It was a lot of fun. I think one character in particular stole the show, much like you, David. Yes. Just awesome. Just nice pacing for me to the episode. And I like the fact that we didn't get a lot of...

[00:21:36] We're not waiting for things to happen. Things are happening. Yes. And it's like, that is such a nice pace to have on a show where the stakes are really high and they're showing you that the stakes are really high by the pacing of the show.

[00:21:52] Like they're not playing around here. Things are going on. OB is saying, we got to find people because if we don't find people, everybody's gone. You know what I mean? So it's really nice to see that there is a direction that they're going, that they're

[00:22:08] trying to tie in characters immediately to let you know that these characters are important. I just... Yeah, I really enjoyed this episode. Nice. Yeah. It really feels like there's a steady hand at the helm here. Alicia, what about you? What's your general hot take for this episode?

[00:22:27] The first episode was a 10 out of 10 for me. And this one is like a seven or an eight out of 10. So it's still really good, but it wasn't quite as seamless as the first one for me. I found the opening abrupt and the pacing was sometimes uneven.

[00:22:43] Like for example, there were some scenes like there's an interrogation scene and it reminded me of the cinematography from Panos Cosmatos. So I don't know if you guys know the Nicolas Cage movie, Mandy. Don't know.

[00:22:57] Yeah, there was an episode of Del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities called The Viewing that he also directed. And it's this distinctive style with like this slow pacing in a red atmosphere with like a droning soundtrack that creates tension. I really liked that.

[00:23:13] But then I just found it a bit jarring amidst like the usual zippiness of Loki. So these are really minor complaints. I think it all came together by the end. I definitely have theories I'm going to talk about later about that final tease.

[00:23:26] And I'm excited for the next episode's going to be directed by the production designer Khazra Farhani. So I'm very excited to see what that's going to look like. That's interesting. That's a twist. All right, cool. What do you think, David? Well, I think I probably largely agree.

[00:23:44] I'm putting, I think coming in around an eight out of 10 type of scale. I was really confused at the beginning of the episode. They'd really drop us in. They don't do a lot of exposition or an explanation. It's just like, boom, we're doing stuff.

[00:23:58] And it was a little bit confusing for me. And I kind of realized that I hadn't given episode one the due care and consideration that we normally do on podcasts. So I woke up early this morning before we jumped on the mics, fired up the laptop,

[00:24:14] watched episode one and two back to back, and it made a lot more sense. And I got into the flow and I was really able to pay attention. I thought the right amount of action was used at the, towards the end of the episode

[00:24:31] to really punctuate what was going on. So like you're saying, Jean, that there's stakes and then there's a natural culmination to the stakes. I think the sets, the scripts, the performances, the VFX, the SFX, the ending credits, the scene transitions, this show is firing on all cylinders.

[00:24:57] And it feels really, really good. And I think another thing that made me feel really good was seeing Loki get to be the god of mischief in this episode. So that was really fun to see it kind of return to form and see him flex a little bit.

[00:25:14] And then, yeah, some of the side characters, Obi and Casey, they're really developing them nicely. So everybody's in support of a really well-focused story. And it feels like the story, the writers, showrunner, whatever we're calling people

[00:25:31] now in the MCU, feels like we're pointed in a, firmly pointed in a particular direction and everything that they're doing is working towards that direction. So yeah, it feels good. Really, this is the show we have been waiting for for a little while and it's exciting.

[00:25:49] All right, well, let's take a quick break. And then when we come back, we'll get into spoilers and do an episode breakdown. And we're back. Let's get into the episode breakdown. Alicia, you have so kindly again done our notes.

[00:26:24] How do you want to run us through this episode? We'll go just scene by scene, roughly one scenario at a time. There's just a, the episode really is only broken down into a few different settings. So are we compressing things a little bit to make things fit?

[00:26:39] Are we doing a little time compression? Yeah, I mean, the secret is I always time compress. But yeah, we don't need to go back and forth each time an edit happens. Yeah. Okay. So we start in the cold open in London, 1977.

[00:26:55] Loki, Tom Hiddleston and Mobius, Owen Wilson show up at a movie premiere looking for the wayward hunter X5, Raphael Cassell, who's modified his temp pad somehow and run away from his job to be a movie star named Brad Wolf on the Sacred Timeline.

[00:27:09] Locubius thinks since he's recovered his pre... That's my couple name for them. Nice. Okay. It works. I love the fact that this is like kind of a workplace comedy at the same time. Yes, it is. It's cool. Go, continue please.

[00:27:23] Locubius thinks since he's recovered his pre-variant memories, he might have intel on where Sylvie is because this has her enchanterous powers written all over it. A chase ensues and we get to see Loki fully Loki out with all his magical extra-ness.

[00:27:37] And he captures Brad slash X5 to take back to the TVA for interrogation. And meanwhile, Hunter B5th Wunmi Mosaku also pretends to be an American tourist before breaking out some martial arts skills, managing to rip the modified temp pad from X5's hands.

[00:27:54] Now, yeah, Jean, I know you're going to explain the Zaniac in comics corner. Yeah, you made me go do my homework. I did the homework. I had some homework so I got some stuff to talk about. But it was pretty front and center.

[00:28:08] I mean, they had a movie poster up there. They referenced it a couple of times. So I instantly, when I saw Zaniac, I was like, okay. Questions. Yeah, questions. What does this mean? I love later he says, it's an elevated thriller. It's cinema.

[00:28:26] And that's probably a jab at Martin Scorsese who last year called Marvel not cinema. Oh, that is nice. See, when you're on the job, this is the kind of fun stuff that you get.

[00:28:44] Yeah. I mean, I guess, yeah, you and I both agreed it was kind of a jarring start. David, what'd you think, Sean? I didn't think it was jarring at all.

[00:28:53] I mean, just when they jumped you because then you start to figure it out. But at first it was like, wait, did I miss something? Like, yeah, they don't. They don't handhold on the start of this episode.

[00:29:03] I guess I was, because I saw some of that in the trailer. I was just like, oh, okay. This is the set that they're running from the trailer.

[00:29:15] I wonder where it's at. And then they started to explain, to fill it in. And I was like, all right, cool. So it didn't take me. I wasn't taken aback by it at all. Like from the jump, I was in it. You know what I mean?

[00:29:29] Yeah. And I like a good, strong start like that, generally speaking. And I like it when a show doesn't spoon feed me too much. I mean, I think they could have done a little bit more.

[00:29:43] But then when, like I said, when I went back and I did a one to two back to back, it made a lot more sense. It was a lot more clear for me. But how good were these guys in their tuxedos? They were looking for.

[00:29:55] Yeah. Especially the, what was it? Loki had the frill. Yes. Yeah. Loki has the frill. And I love it when he's walking down that alley and he's got that sort of big cat shoulder roll walk and he unbuttons his jacket.

[00:30:10] This was really. And then, of course, all of the illusion tricks in the shadow play. Oh, yeah. That was so good. That was my favorite part of the episode. It was so great to see Tom Hiddleston play Loki that like we knew.

[00:30:25] And of course, we get a call back later when they're in the when they're in the auto mat eating pie. So it just it just felt really just cool. I was like, great. OK, Loki. Loki's back. He's not just being ripped like spaghetti around the timeline.

[00:30:40] He's actually getting to do Loki stuff. This is we have to remember the not reformed Loki. He's not reformed yet. This is a Loki that we got right after Avengers.

[00:30:53] So he's this is not the guy who, you know, came to suddenly in love, fully embrace his as guardian side. Right. This is the Loki that's aligned with Thanos. So it's really great to see that villain come out, you know, because this is Loki the villain.

[00:31:17] This is not Loki the antihero. This is Loki the trickster god. He's on a different redemption arc. Yes, exactly. Exactly. This is not the guy from Ragnarok. This is you know, this is this is evil Loki who you know.

[00:31:32] So it's nice to see that part of his character come out. For sure. It was definitely nice to see. Were either of you confused about X-Fives? I want to say identity. But when I saw Brad Wolfe and they're calling him X-Five, I was really confused.

[00:31:53] This part led into my confusion. I was really confused because I did not recognize him. Oh, yeah, because he grew out his hair. Yeah, obviously. I think they filmed those scenes after these scenes, right? You know, because to cut this hair. Or it's a wig. Could be.

[00:32:09] It looks pretty good. It looks like a great wig. Nice hair. I was so confused. And so when I again, when I did my rewatch, it made sense. And I just sort of accepted it from here. But his character shift physically in terms of how he's playing it.

[00:32:25] He's not playing that cocksure, you know, bro with the armor and the gloves with the goatee and the short hair. I mean, thankfully they didn't give him a mullet for that character, because it would have been fitting.

[00:32:40] But he just had such a change in performance and physical look that I didn't really. It took me a long time to figure out. No, that's actually the same actor.

[00:32:49] Right. Right. And I think that, you know, it was great because like you said, he took off the armor. So we see who X5 really wants to be. He's not pretending to be this thing that existed in the TVA. So what you're seeing.

[00:33:08] I was going to ask you guys, how long do you think he's been living on that timeline from his perspective? Because we know obviously that it's a different time than the TVA is experiencing. Well, long enough to be able to, you know, get into acting. Build a career.

[00:33:23] Build a career so that he's got a London premiere. This guy has a thriving Hollywood career right now. So unless he was just found, people get found by directives. You know, like, no, he wasn't found. It looks like he built a career for himself.

[00:33:40] So what was a little risk device that he used to do that sort of short range teleprotection? Thing. Have we seen that before? Yes, we have. But I didn't write down the name of it.

[00:33:52] OK. All right. Did we see it in season one? I don't I don't remember. Yes. OK. I almost need to do a season rewatch. I don't know if I've got time for that, though. So but that's I mean, it was that was part of the Tempad.

[00:34:05] No, yes, it was. Yeah. But that specific function has a name. I can't remember. So, OK, because when B-15 fights him and rips it out of his hand, did did it break a little bit and he got part of it and she got the majority of it?

[00:34:22] Or was this a whole separate device? It's two devices that that he uses as as one. Right. So it's like two separate things that come together to make this to make those jumps possible. So that's why he couldn't really do it when Loki caught him.

[00:34:41] Right. Right. Right. Anything else about this opening sequence? Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to go through all the Easter eggs, but I just have to point out one is that there was a Kingo poster, which is appropriate.

[00:34:54] Kingo being the the Eternal who has been secretly pretending to be his all of his descendants who all happen to become major Bollywood stars. Where was the poster? In the in the theater when they were doing the chase.

[00:35:09] Oh, really? Was it in the alleys or was it in the theater? It was, I think, in the alley. I don't know. You're asking a lot of very specific questions. You told me fewer details. You told me not to write down the details.

[00:35:23] Sorry. OK, it's there. Go back a little bit more. Fair enough. Cool. I think it was in the alley. OK, that would make sense if it was in the alley. Yeah.

[00:35:32] We have after the Licky Ticky Loki Tiki Taki intro, Brad Wolfe is brought back to the TVA holding, though it's unclear under whose authority and Locbius takes the modified temp pad to OB to get it checked out.

[00:35:48] But OB K. Hui Quan reminds them in his signature perfectly timed upbeat delivery that it's probably more important that he fix the temporal loom before all of time melts down.

[00:35:58] So he hands them the TVA guidebook, which they are supposed to have already read and encourages them to take care of the temp pad investigation themselves, which clearly does not go well.

[00:36:09] We also saw Neil Elise back as D-90 assisting our crew. Seems like he might be doing something important. Maybe he'll be sacrificing himself later in the season. What do you guys think?

[00:36:22] Yeah, they're definitely building him up to be a functional part of the storyline. And whether he's a pin in a grenade that goes off later or has a clutch save something, they're definitely building him something.

[00:36:38] They're giving him they're giving enough of him to us that we're going to start to care about him. And then it's going to be something good or something bad, something bad for him. Right. But it's going to be clutch for sure.

[00:36:51] I don't have an opinion on if he lives or dies, if he's here for the long haul or not. D-90 is nice to know you. But yeah, I think they set things up right. So it's not by accident that we're seeing this character that we know of, but it's not terribly integral to the party.

[00:37:18] You know what I mean? So he's here. So to serve a purpose, what that person's purpose might be. Yeah. Maybe he does save someone at the end and sacrifices himself. Something along those lines. He's going to have a function. Yeah, yeah. They don't do these things by accident.

[00:37:36] I got to give a shout out to the cinematography on this show. The perspectives of Mobius and Loki walking in through the tunnel that that tracking shot as they come through, he's as the cameras backing up with them.

[00:37:50] And then we've got K. He Quan on the floor and we tilt up and we have Loki and Mobius looking down. We have the checkerboard ceiling. There's just a lot of beautiful visual imagery here and really smart uses of the camera to keep us in.

[00:38:07] And I think that's one of the things I'm enjoying about the show is that it's very character forward and character focused. And they're doing that by bringing the camera, using the camera smartly, using the shots, the way that they're setting up the shots, the way that they're doing their wides and their close ups. It feels really, really expert level TV movie making.

[00:38:31] So it looks like the cinematographer for this episode was Oliver Lawn Crane. Okay. Well, they are nailing it along with the set decoration and the props, the computers and the switches. Have either of you seen, was it Chernobyl? Yeah, the HBO movie series. About Chernobyl, yeah.

[00:38:53] I get a lot of vibes from that, that sort of 70s era Soviet. It's not full brutalism because there's a lot of art and design flourishes, but the hallway that they walk through that's curved or when they're down in the control room, the sets they're building out are just incredible. And so matched with this competent filmmaking, it's a sumptuous feast for sure.

[00:39:20] And yeah, I was going to ask who your favorite character is this season and why is it OB, but it sounds like you guys might have another contender. Oh no, it's still OB. Oh, it's still OB? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's still OB for me.

[00:39:35] I'm loving that Casey's stepping up and they're giving him more though. He's not just a simple character or comic relief, but he's actually going to have some impact. Smarter than he looks. Yeah, he's smarter than he looks. There's more depth to Casey than we originally believed to be.

[00:39:53] I think so. I think so.

[00:39:55] Yeah. And I love this whole scene here of them struggling with the TemPad because of course, why would they know what to do with that? And I love that they reference, like it said in section 42 is supposed to fit into which a lot of people are like, oh, 42 every time it comes up because it's like because of Hitchhiker's Guide and Spider-Verse and stuff. It's a famous number.

[00:40:20] But I think I love that it's just kind of like showing how, how ridiculously complex everything in the TVA is.

[00:40:29] And the guidebook is really thin. It's not like a huge thing, but everything's written in it. So is there something about the guide or the manuals, the TVA manuals that is like TARDIS-like as well?

[00:40:41] Right, right, right. There's more in there than once you open it, it leads to like a huge tone, you know? Yeah. They're doing some good stuff in this. But still, Obi's the favorite. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah, Casey is a good contender.

[00:40:59] Well, we'll get to Brad here in a minute. But Brad, oh man, this guy, this actor, where did he come from? Anyway, carry on with the next scene.

[00:41:09] Well, speaking of Casey, played by Eugene Cordero, aka Pillboy from The Good Place. He's looking for Ramona Renslayer's, Gugu Mbatha-Raw's, TemPad on all the timelines, which B-15 assures him is not a secret mission because she did a lot of killing on her way out the door.

[00:41:25] But without Miss Minutes, all the searching has to be done manually. But he did find out that the last person to send Renslayer a message before she went offline was Miss Minutes herself. He shares this with Lokius and Loki shares the recorded conversation with Renslayer he heard in the last episode.

[00:41:44] B-15, she had a funny moment here. She really is full of surprises. What do you think she was going to say?

[00:41:52] Yeah, that was nice. They kept it PG there. I think it's B-15's sense of two degree professionalism. You know, she's not going to swear in the workplace necessarily. That's the way I read it. I kind of like it that way. No, yeah, I think she's awesome.

[00:42:10] We need to get really stepping up into this role. Yeah, she has a real gravitas on the screen. Yeah, she's just awesome. I love watching her.

[00:42:21] I love watching her too, which is now like, I hope she gets more to do in the series. But it seems like now they're showing her doing a lot of reaction shots. So she's taking everything in and thinking about things a lot right now.

[00:42:35] And so far, she's just sort of a one note character in terms of, well, we can't stop. We can't be pruning these are lives. This episode and last episode was just that. I never would have thought coming out of Lovecraft country, we would have seen Winnie step over into the MCU. But wow, it's a really great stepping stone for her.

[00:43:01] She was great in Lovecraft country, but also I have to shout her out. I have to shout her out in His House, which is also on Netflix, I think. It's a horror movie and she plays a refugee from South Sudan. Oh yeah, I didn't watch that.

[00:43:16] I mean, yeah, it is the season. So I recommend that to anyone. It's a good one. And Lovecraft. And Lovecraft. So good. Also good this time of year.

[00:43:25] I remember those were pandemic days and I remember where we were out and that was on. And I remember messaging with you, Jean, about the show and listening to the official podcast. Yeah, such a heartbreaking that they never got the season.

[00:43:44] That she didn't get to do season two. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Anyway, speaking of Casey, he is, of course, the one other person in the TVA who has read the manual ad nauseum. So he steps in to save poor X5's Tempad from Locbius' fumbling.

[00:44:06] And like Obi, Casey is certain that what X5 said isn't true. The modification that's been done to it is not to block TVA tracking. There's a different reason it was modified.

[00:44:18] And this new role leads to Casey getting to meet his hero, Obi, which has completed his modification for the temporal loom to prevent time from melting down, but has realized that the blast doors are now locked shut and can only be opened by Miss Minutes or he who remains himself.

[00:44:36] Right. So this is a bit of a combined scene setup, right? We're in multiple pieces here. Yep. I loved seeing Casey fanboy on Obi. Yeah, that was so cool.

[00:44:49] And Obi being completely like, cool, good to meet you too. Like no ego about it. No nothing. And when he just to hark back to the scene about, hey, what's priority? Should I work on the temporal thing or work on this Tempad? Like that was an honest question, right? He wasn't trying to be snarky.

[00:45:06] I feel like he does know what he's saying, but he just delivers it in this way. And also when B-15 walks in and we hear the first off screen, we're all going to die. I laughed out loud the first time. Like that's not a funny thing to say, but the way he delivers it is so good.

[00:45:21] Absolutely. Yeah. And I guess we talked about the TVA manual, but that his picture was in there and yeah, this thing is a weird thing. I hope they play with it a little bit more because it's around the more on my second watch, I noticed it more around. It is around in people's hands and people's on people's desks, things like that.

[00:45:45] So I hope it's a fun device that they activate up a little bit more in the plot. Yeah. So yes. And he had access denied because of invalid temporal aura, but okay. There's some people saying things online and they're getting in my head and I'm worried.

[00:46:04] People saying things online? Sorry, I'm not trying to be snark. I'm worried about OB. Is he playing innocent or is he really pulling the strings? Could this be some sort of manipulation to get Kang and Miss Minutes back?

[00:46:23] I mean, I said it the last time we spoke after episode one, there's more to OB. You know, there's more to OB and it seems like this is some sort of triumvirate with Kang at the top and Miss Minutes and OB second fiddles to running the entirety of the TVA.

[00:46:49] So this guy that we're seeing who's really innocent and fun is a playful character who doesn't seem to remember everything. You know, he has his memory jarred. Is there a reason for that?

[00:47:05] Like, if he knows who he is, is that the person that's going to go on rampages? You know, there's a lot of questions around OB that I have. I don't fear it because I think it would be so cool if he turns out to be really evil.

[00:47:23] Oh, like a complete heel turn. Oh, if he does a heel turn. Oh my gosh. That's gonna be so awesome. You love a villain.

[00:47:31] Oh, yes I do. Yes I do. If he does it, oh my gosh, my neighbors are going to hate me. I will be yelling late into the evening. It would be fun.

[00:47:47] I've been taking him as maybe he doesn't know who he is beyond, you know, like he's just... He's playing it that way at least.

[00:47:58] Exactly. And that's the way I'm reading it. And you know, is he programmed that way in a sense? Is that the limit of his knowledge? Because I agree there's way more going on because he's way, way more knowledgeable, especially last episode. He's way more knowledgeable about all this stuff.

[00:48:18] And yeah, well, I mean, he's the only one that comes down to the loom and he only runs diagnostics every couple of hundred years. Right. So, right. He's clued in at some other level. And why do they keep him down there by himself? Isolated.

[00:48:35] And that he doesn't have a team, right? Yeah, he's isolated in some way. So what is that telling us?

[00:48:39] Right. Well, meanwhile, while this is going on, we have an interrogation. So freed up from the IT stuff, Lokebius, they get to play good cop, bad cop with X5 or Brad as he insists on being called still. Brad.

[00:48:53] Breaking Brad. He doesn't want to give up what he knows about the locations of General Docs, Katie Dickey or Sylvia DiMartino. But after a whole lot of mind games, followed by some claustrophobia inducing light torture play acting, he's ready to take Lokebius to see Sylvia's new secret life. And there's also an interlude where the boys stumble across a suspiciously sudden cafeteria and eat some violently green key lime pie.

[00:49:20] This was just a great big chunk of the episode. It really did a lot of work, a lot of character work. And yeah, I enjoyed all of these sequences super much. So did I.

[00:49:35] It was very interesting filmmaking going on here. But some of it I think could have been zippier just because this is Loki. Like I wouldn't mind it in a different show. But that's just me. It's just one episode. I still really enjoyed it.

[00:49:47] I agree that the pacing on this particular episode was a lot different than episode one. And you know, I think having listened to podcasts for years before becoming a podcaster and then now listening to other podcasts to, you know, just to be part of our industry, that's one of the consistent complaints I hear about people make all the time. It's an easy one. It's an easy shot to take about pacing.

[00:50:16] And I don't know. I mean, I agree sometimes there are criticisms about pacing, but I felt the pacing of this episode for the story that we're telling in this episode for me was fine. I was very happy with it. I never felt the fast, slow up down thin thickness of it. It all seemed relative to the story and.

[00:50:39] It flowed to me. It flowed. It was slow for you? Yeah, it was. It flowed for me. Not slow. Not slow.

[00:50:47] Let me explain what I mean by the pacing. So I watched this episode twice and the second time especially, I noticed that there were some scenes that I just wanted to go faster, that I wished I could speed up the playback. That's very personal to me. I will admit that I have ADD and this definitely plays a factor in the fact that I do like a faster, more phonetic pacing, which is more typical of Logie.

[00:51:12] Can I just really quick? But like I said, I do enjoy that, like the cinema style that they used in this, especially in this interrogation sequence.

[00:51:22] I was just going to segue, interject slightly. Netflix has a speed. You can increase the speed where most other, I think Hulu has it too. Maybe I'm wrong there, but nobody else has a, I can't. And I agree with you. I really sometimes when we're watching these things, I wish I could do like a 1.2x or a 1.5x.

[00:51:41] Especially when I'm like rewatching to make notes, you know? Exactly. Sorry, I kind of stepped on your point there though. No, no, no. I guess I could see the point. They did take their time, but it was fine for me.

[00:51:55] No, that's good. That's good. It's just for, I mean, like I said, I still really love this episode. It just wasn't as perfect for me as the first one. But there were a lot of very interesting moral questions in this whole sequence. Yeah, yeah.

[00:52:08] Even Mobius admits later like, oh, we kind of tortured you a little bit there. But also, yeah, we have X5 asking B15, you were the one blabbering about lives in the timeline. Well, I went down and got mine. So what are you mad at me about? And it's like, well, he's kind of got a point.

[00:52:25] At first I said he kind of has a point, but then I realized what they were doing. What they were doing, I was like, yeah, no bro. No, they need to speak shit. Nah, yeah. You're just being cheeky right here. Nah, get out of here.

[00:52:40] But despite that, I somehow liked Brad more this episode. You did? I did too. I was really- You guys liked him? Yeah. He had a charisma once he got rid of the goatee and had his hair. Maybe it was the tuxedo and the white scarf. I don't know.

[00:53:00] Yeah, it seemed like he had claimed his own- he knew himself now. Right. Because he lived his life as it was on the Sacred Timeline. Oh, I didn't like him at all. I mean, he was being a jerk, you know, but sure.

[00:53:13] No, I liked the portrayal. I thought it was great. It was one of my favorites. This entire scene, all the scenes that he was in were captivating. Yeah, completely.

[00:53:24] They were so well done. The banter was great. The back and forth. Just him overall as a character was so well fleshed out and really well done. But I don't like him. No, I mean, yeah.

[00:53:37] Well, yeah, you put your finger on him as the guy who's got to go in episode one. I don't like him. Like, get in the box, bro. I don't like- He's slimy. He's slimy. Get in the box.

[00:53:48] So they- the whole box sequence, they set up Loki's technical ineptitude early in the episode, but I didn't believe that he didn't know how to operate that torture box. Neither did I. But it was such good acting.

[00:54:02] Both on Hiddleston's part and on Loki's part. So real follow through. Yeah, and Owen Wilson who is like pretending to not be in on it.

[00:54:12] And the way that they set that stuff up when they would close in on the porthole and do long shots in the room. Oh, it was so well set up. It was perfect. It was good stuff, man. It was good stuff.

[00:54:25] And this actor, where has he been? He's a revelation. He is- what's his name again? Raphael- oh, what's his name? I looked him up and he's been in stuff, but just not like stuff that I've watched.

[00:54:40] Right. Where is it in your notes here? You have it in your notes somewhere. Raphael Cassell.

[00:54:46] Yeah. He's playing off of the energy of Owen Wilson and Tom Hiddleston and trading the banter back and forth and the sort of aggrieved nature that he had about being, you know, wanting to get out of one timeline and back to his other one.

[00:55:06] All of that and the punchiness of the dialogue, the jabs. As he's going after Loki and what he says to Loki, wow. And then he follows it up with Mobius. Yeah. Yeah. Mobius snaps. Yeah.

[00:55:23] He said to Mobius, until you wake up, you're nothing. You're a nowhere man. And that made Mobius lose it. What do you think that's about?

[00:55:30] I love the nowhere man thing too. It instantly made me think of the Beatles song. So I wonder if that's intentional. I don't know. Now I'm going to have to go dig up some stuff about nowhere men.

[00:55:42] Could be. And yeah, Mobius says later on, the TVA is the only life I've ever known. Do you think it was about that? He talks about being afraid that he lost something good.

[00:55:54] Yeah. He's more afraid of losing something good than having something bad happen to him. That's really interesting. And that he left behind a bad life.

[00:56:03] Well, and this again is where a quality show is working. You know a quality show is working because that is a very interesting line for a character to deliver us, to give us his interior sensibility.

[00:56:18] But it's also saying to us something in here, in our primary world. And how we as human beings deal with loss and good times. And how sometimes people will downplay the good times. And they'll suffer. I can't think of the word. Perseverate? Persevere?

[00:56:36] No, not persevere. Perseverate. Being stuck always thinking about the same thing over and over and over again. And so how just this whole question of you know how we think about things and good times and bad times. And how he says I can easily deal with a bad time. It's the good time. If I lost that good time sensibility, that would be more soul crushing to me than you know having something oh you know something tragic happened to me. It's such an interesting commentary.

[00:57:05] I think Mobius is an interesting guy. He's an interesting character. Because he doesn't even, out of everyone there, he's the only one that really doesn't seem to want to know anything that happened before he knows what happened.

[00:57:23] Right? He's saying all right this is a cut off. I know this life. I know what this is. I don't really want to know. I don't care to know about what could have been because I know what is. And what is, is here and now. And it's good enough for me.

[00:57:43] That's like David said in the real world, that's very applicable to a lot of folks you know who have trauma. They don't want to revisit that. I'm in a good place now and I want to stay in this good place and this is where I'm going to focus my energies on. On being in the here and now.

[00:58:04] Right. Right? The change is scary, right? It's something different. It's more scary than living with what I've got right now. Right. So when he delivered the line, the thought that I had was like I wonder what he went through in a previous life. And the body remembers, right?

[00:58:24] Right. Right. That kind of trauma which really goes into a lot of the Lovecraft country storylines. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was how we carry trauma through us in passing. Forward through history. Yeah. You know, through history. I mean that's literal epigenetics. Right. Yeah.

[00:58:44] Yeah, yeah. So you know that's when he said that I was just like wow, I wonder what this guy went through to come out of it and you know there's something that's saying to himself don't even think about that. Don't do it. Don't worry about what happened before.

[00:59:02] Should we just hold on the theory about Mobius' backstory until we get to the end sequence? Because I've kind of started to bite my nails about wanting to talk about it. Put it in the notes for the, yeah bring it up. Yeah we can talk about it now.

[00:59:15] Okay so I saw this, I was scrolling through Dead Bird. I'm not fully over to Fluffy Cloud yet. I spend more, more, still there's, I'm frustrated because a lot of what I want on the Dead Bird is. Right, it's not there yet.

[00:59:29] No, not everybody is over in the Fluffy Cloud. And not all the features, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right, right, the features. Even though Dead Bird's stripping away features. Yes, it's true.

[00:59:39] Eric Voss from New Rock Stars posted something on his Twitter about Mobius' backstory and I think he juxtaposed a picture of the, what's the kid's name at the McDonald's? Jake. Yeah, Jake and Mobius and hinting. Oh it's Jack, sorry it's Jack.

[01:00:03] Jack and Mobius and I was pretty taken aback by that. I thought that was a pretty solid out of the box theory. I don't know, what did you guys think? Yeah I could buy into it. Why not? I mean Jack has a big time crush on Sylvie too.

[01:00:20] Yeah, yeah they're making sure that we see that and see him so yeah, solid theory, you know.

[01:00:28] He's there when she walks in and there's an interaction and then there's multiple, you know, then he asks her about the straws and then at the end I know we're jumping scenes here a little bit. It, I mean we're time slipping that's what this podcast is about right?

[01:00:40] Right.

[01:00:42] That he, they're giving that character a lot of space and so if something happens in that place in that time, and he does something that takes you know has the TVA take notice, or, you know, somehow, I guess shines in some way or something I could see him getting pulled in and then that would account for the trauma as well.

[01:01:05] Although that timeline they're on is, it's a divergent timeline but that he would still be the same character on. Yeah. I mean obviously it would have been a divergent timeline that Moby was pruned from anyway. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[01:01:18] So I really like it and it would make for me a wholeness for that character in an interesting way. We're always hunting for shadows in the interviews like this. Yeah, no I mean. It's a good one.

[01:01:31] It's a good one to hunt for because yeah I could see him, I could see them being the same character. Right. Can I throw another theory on the table? No, we can't throw any craft on this show.

[01:01:44] Okay well it's more of a question but like what do you think is up with the key lime pie because I don't know it was suspicious the way they just kind of stumbled upon it without like they're both like no you let me hear no you let me hear.

[01:01:56] And then it seemed oddly calming on them both. Okay well let's answer that but then we have to talk about the hallway and the automat and all of this stuff too but yeah I don't know if the pie is a plant.

[01:02:07] That's all they were selling in the automat. I think it's all connected. Yeah. It looked like it was only pie. Yeah. And the hallway of the, God where did they find this set? It is incredible and the camera work of them tracking through that curve perfectly.

[01:02:26] And then as they're sitting there with the repeating square pattern of the pie and to get all that old automat equipment because that is real stuff that was, this is real stuff from the past.

[01:02:41] And then to have the matching key lime pie pattern on the floor and on the ceiling, gorgeous, absolutely stunning. Go ahead David. No I'm done I'm just gushing.

[01:02:54] When they were walking that hallway, that curve, I flash back to Thor Ragnarok when he is walking with Korg in one big circle. Right and that was on Sakaar right?

[01:03:12] That was on Sakaar when he was captured and they put the chip in his neck but he thought that he could get out of the room but it was just leading him back in one huge circle. Like an Ouroboros. Oh there it is. Like an Ouroboros.

[01:03:33] There it is. That's another thing that made me think of Thor in this episode. Nice so more evidence for the Thor theory. That's what I got.

[01:03:46] Yeah and I loved also Loki calling out, he was just like when they're having their calm pie he's like you know Moby sometimes you just have to let your rage out like remember that time I insert entire plot of the Avengers? That was so good.

[01:04:01] Because I was mad at my dad and my brother. Not because I wanted to rule the world or take over the cosmos but because I was mad at my brother and my dad. Yeah. And this is exactly the redemption path right?

[01:04:21] Like recognizing what you've done and the reasons that you've done them. That's right. That's right. Yeah you have to acknowledge, you have to kind of inventory the hurt that you've done so that you can acknowledge before you can fix it. Another Thor. Totally yeah.

[01:04:39] Can I get together with my brother? Like they're planting like little seeds here. Which is what they do and which is what we want from MCU right? This is what the genre is. Is interconnectivity. Right. Which is comic books right? Which is comic books. Which is comic.

[01:04:55] I wonder how many, I wonder how the global sales of key lime pie are doing right now. I hope people don't expect it to look like that. Not a key lime pie guy. That was TV key lime pie. Oh I'm not a key lime pie guy.

[01:05:10] I definitely am. With the whipped cream it cuts it right? You gotta have that balance. No I'm not a whipped cream girl. Oh my gosh. Even real whipped cream? Not even the canned stuff? Yeah no I've made it myself where it's been okay.

[01:05:23] But no it's kind of like flavorless. I know people are coming for me. Don't add Alicia. I did. But don't add her on the bird or anything like that. All right. I wanted to go back really quick.

[01:05:39] When they were doing the interrogation with X5 and the box, something that I noticed was, and this is just again pointing to good writing, is that Loki never asked X5 about General Dox. He only asked where is, did you find? He did once. Did he?

[01:06:02] Yeah the first time he did but then after that it was just. No but when it's just Loki in the box when he has him in the cube thing. Oh okay yeah. He's like did you find Sylvie and where is she?

[01:06:13] And all X5 does is say I don't know where General Dox is, I don't know what the plans are. So it was really nicely done that he's answering different questions than what is being asked of him which is an avoidance right?

[01:06:28] Right but he was lying anyway because he did know. Yeah. No but Sylvie found out where she and she, oh that's right of course yes you are correct. She got it out of his head. Naturally. Right she got it out of his head. That's right. So he knew.

[01:06:43] Yeah that box thing was great too the visual look of it that sort of aged plexiglass quality to it and it looks like the time doors in a way but it's not, that's a terrifying torture device too. Yeah it really is, it really is.

[01:06:58] It was for someone who's claustrophobic oh gosh. You'd have to do like the contortionist from the Wheel of Time. Right. Where Rhyma yeah. In the 70s, oh what was that there was a show where people would go on and it was a big game showy style show.

[01:07:17] Amazing amazing people are amazing to I forget what it's called. And they would always have the the yogi in the box who would like be in the box for 18 days or something like that and slow there.

[01:07:28] So that's what that made me that was a callback for me for that. So another call out really quick. The shot of Brad laying on the gridded floor, laying down and then they do the camera inversion when they're bringing in the torch.

[01:07:43] Just incredible stuff so many, so many fun little uses of camera and angle. So I'll try to tamp down my gushing but I can't. No don't don't. It deserves it it deserves it. It does. Then we get Brad bringing the boys to see Sylvie in Broxton, Oklahoma 1982.

[01:08:03] And she's working at a McDonald's and she is not happy to see them. Loki tries to appeal to her for help telling her he saw her when he time slipped to the future TVA but she just wants to be done with it all. And Brad's acting really squirrely.

[01:08:18] So Sylvie ends up using her enchanting powers to uncover his plot with General Docs to bomb all the branch timelines including the one where she is hiding. So yay the gang's back together. Yes that was fun. Maybe. Maybe.

[01:08:35] You know I really like that Sylvie was just living her life. That's the one thing I wanted for her just to have some sort of normalcy whatever that normalcy would be. That doesn't make good TV though so. No it doesn't it doesn't. It's not going to last.

[01:08:50] I was happy to see that. That for a little bit she was just you know. She got a moment. Yeah I mean this McDonald's I got a truck it's a flatbed you know. Looking at the stars you know who knows what else she's been able to do.

[01:09:06] She's got a job and living a very mundane ho-hum life apparently. Which you know there's some there's a dignity in that right. And being of service to people and yeah and living a simple life there is you know she's had a complex life.

[01:09:21] She's had a very complex life. She killed a lot of people. She's a Loki. She is a Loki. On the run. Chaos.

[01:09:30] Yeah and as we didn't we didn't really talk about but when Brad was laying down on Loki he was saying you did bad stuff to a lot of people.

[01:09:40] And every time we go through I read your file you were a problem no matter what variant you are no matter you know where you are on whatever timeline it's a constant problem for me. It's core to who you are. And they call them a loser.

[01:09:57] They call them a loser. And it's like get this guy Brad. This guy Brad Wolf. He's laying out the truth though. Because that is Loki's right? This tragic misanthrope character. I don't know if he's tragic but yeah I will agree. I agree with everything that Brad says.

[01:10:19] But it's just that it's coming from Brad. But he says it in a douchey way. That's fair enough. But yeah Mobius he gets more pie. He seems to be quite the pie loving dude.

[01:10:30] But I have to say that the Mobius X5 banter didn't work as well for me in this scene as I would have hoped. Really? Yeah. Okay. But I guess you guys feel differently. But yeah what were you going to say David? The pie is deadly.

[01:10:42] I don't know if y'all remember the apple pie or the cherry pie the way that they would heat it up in some sort of air vection. Oh the lava yeah.

[01:10:52] Oh my lord I was disabused at an early age of ever ordering pie when we went to McDonald's because I was so afraid. You would have to wait like 45 minutes an hour for that freaking thing to cool down before you could.

[01:11:06] And then by then it's just disgusting sugar syrup right? So finding the perfect temperature that didn't scald the inside of your mouth and fuse your lips together to get that deliciousness. Yeah it was very frustrating. They got the temperature right in Broxton. He was killing that pie.

[01:11:23] He was. Yeah we have a similar thing here called bitterballen which are like these fried breaded kind of gravy balls. And yeah they're the same like everyone especially new people they come out immediately put them in their mouth and then you know. Oh gosh.

[01:11:41] Immediately lose all the skin. Oh no. Skin question mark? Another quick call out about sort of McDonald's things. Okay so what's up with McDonald's? I heard an ad the other day for McDonald's with Brian Cox from you know obviously from Severance and he's doing an ad.

[01:11:58] There was a couple of other McDonald's things. McDonald's is opening up the bag. They are shelling out some cash. And we got a great overhead drone shot here of the McDonald's sign. And it says over 40 billion served. And I think that's accurate to the 80s.

[01:12:15] That's what I recall in the 80s that it was a 40 billion number.

[01:12:18] So I don't know what's up but McDonald's is on a big push recently and I think Disney is down to have some of that cash because they got to pay back some of the 4 billion that they used to buy the MCU title.

[01:12:32] So I wonder how much more tie ins that we're going to see in future properties. So far it's not bad. I don't mind how they're using it so far. It seems okay. It seems like part of the story. It's not just product placement. Yeah.

[01:12:51] So it's not just product placement. She was going to do this somewhere. Why not at McDonald's? Right. There are no big belly burgers here. Did you guys notice too on the typography when they do the dates?

[01:13:07] And I'm looking at this right now and I didn't notice this before but they have the 1982 and then they have the Broxton, Oklahoma. And in the middle there's a timeline with little branches and then they box in the text that says branched timeline. Right.

[01:13:21] And they indicate which timeline branching it's coming off of. I thought that that's again just really good attention to detail. So that tells us that the timeline Brad was on, that he can just go back to it after this massive timeline genocide because that was the sacred timeline.

[01:13:41] I'm scrubbing back up to that moment now. But then meanwhile this timeline that Sylvie's on, they would just take her out so they knew where she was, fine, great. And that was one of the timelines they were going to prune anyway.

[01:13:53] So just part of the bigger job for them. But his other alternative life is going to be safe. Yeah, it says secret timeline right under the 1977. So yeah.

[01:14:03] So yeah, once they get back to the TVA, B-15 is watching the branches blow up on a TVA monitor and the genocide of it all is just showing on her face. So I have to give Wunmi some credit for that.

[01:14:19] And while Loki times two plus Bestie, they find General Dox and their cronies in an old shipping yard. They eventually stop her from pruning even more timelines, including Sylvie's timeline hideout by Loki squared holding hands for a green energy blast.

[01:14:34] And they take Dox and her remaining loyalists into custody. Sylvie returns to her timeline hideout thinking about all that genocide and the ineffectiveness of the TVA. But promising her kid manager, Jack, Jack Cunningham, Nudol, that she'll be in for work the next day.

[01:14:50] And we see she still has he who remains special TemPad wristlet. And oh, Casey also got hit on Ren Slayer's TemPad. Really great building of this episode. So we get a short, sharp sequence of action. They pay out the Dox storyline really quickly.

[01:15:10] I just thought that they wrapped it up nicely in a quick way that made sense. And then didn't, you know, we're not struggling with the Dox storyline for the whole of the series. Right. That's that's not the story.

[01:15:26] So, yeah, it was I thought this sequence was really well done. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree. I was wondering about just thinking of them. Did either be watched the gifted or have you read about like the Struckers slash Von Strucker twins from the comics called Fenris?

[01:15:45] Anyway, they hold hands to do these energy blasts like that. So it's just making me think of that. Probably just you have enough ideas in Marvel Comics that they repeat themselves. But interesting parallel. Did anybody else see the when they were showing the timelines being pruned back?

[01:16:03] It really reminded me of the old Missile Command game where we had the big trackball. John, just did you did you just have a flashback, John? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. The little explosions in the way that the timelines feed back. Yeah, I didn't see that at first.

[01:16:17] Just give me vibes. I didn't see that at first. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. This show has given me a lot of nostalgia. Well, yeah, they're doing that. Well, making it like sort of vaguely 70s, 80s. Yeah. All this time travel. Yeah. It's fun. Yeah.

[01:16:36] And I have a theory about what we see Sylvie holding at the end. We see we it's the special TemPad from from he who remains as I said. But I had a big question mark about this. Yeah.

[01:16:50] But could it could it be that Miss Minutes is like controlled from this? So could it be that Sylvie would then now be in control of Miss Minutes? Interesting. I don't think so. No, I don't think so.

[01:17:04] Because we we from what we saw he who remains didn't use it in that way when we saw him. I think he used it more and that's the one pad that could basically do anything. It's definitely the master pad. Yeah.

[01:17:24] So they teased the pad too in the previously on. So in the opening of this episode, they showed us that little pad thing and it was kind of broken, wasn't it?

[01:17:35] I mean, it's like his whole his whole like castle at the end of the world had this what did we call it again? The Mitsukuni? Oh, right. The Japanese are repairing things with gold. Yeah, which we saw in in Ahsoka.

[01:17:49] So that's an interesting there's a little what do you call that zeitgeist thing happening? So yeah, I don't know if it that she the thing that struck me is that that she took it from him and I'm wondering I was left wondering why she took it from him.

[01:18:05] Right. So it's called Kintsugi just right. Right. Yeah. So I'm wondering why she took it from him. Why she took from his his cold dead hands. Right. Yeah. I mean, yeah. She took it off him when after she ended his his his life. So what's the purpose?

[01:18:23] If she is intending to just live out her her life in a quiet way, you know, ho-hum and mundane. Why does she feel the need to have this super powerful weapon? Because that's basically that's what it is. Good way to protect your timeline.

[01:18:41] Maybe as security, although it was almost destroyed. But no, yeah. Why doesn't she give it to like Loki you mean? Like what should she do with it otherwise? Why doesn't she use it when they're fighting? Right. That's what I'm saying. Why isn't she using it?

[01:18:56] Because she's she had we see it at the end. She's holding it. Right. Yep. But does she know what she can do with it? Why is she keeping that? Why is she keeping it away from? Yeah. Why doesn't she tell him? She's like hiding it. She's hiding it.

[01:19:08] Like she has this ace up her sleeve that she's not letting anyone else know about. And I want to know why. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good question. Yeah. She seems to be struggling.

[01:19:20] I like how Loki says to her at the at the end, right before she leaves the TBA, he's like, it's harder to stay and she walks away. So we're seeing. Great line. Yeah.

[01:19:29] We're seeing he might be starting to mature past where she is right now with dealing with all their Loki trauma. Right. And then the delivery, it's harder. Pause, pause, pause as she walks away. Right. To stay. Yeah.

[01:19:44] And you feel the resolve and that he's struggling with it as well. Right. And it's a really great another entry into the question of do you stay and maintain part of the bureaucracy and try to do the whole change for him in or are you trying to be

[01:19:59] the outside causal agent when the tension between those things? So yeah, really, really nice to see Loki struggling with that and potentially getting some growth out of this. And she is Loki, right? Yes. Yeah. So we've already established that all Lokis are evil, villainous, right? Loser.

[01:20:23] Evil is not the word I would use, but villainous, sure. Well, Loki in traditional mythology isn't evil. Not evil. Right, right, right, right. It's a trickster. God of mischief and tricksters and- Mischievous, yeah. Mischievous, okay.

[01:20:36] So we've established that and Brad has established in at least in our universe that we're watching that every Loki is a villain, right? So are we seeing- From whose perspective? Yeah. That's a question that we can ask of almost every character. Right.

[01:21:01] What makes one a hero or villain? What makes one a hero, what makes one a villain? Right? Yes. Which is what comic books do, right? Which is what they do. And when we have something like the boys, when it flips all that on its head, right?

[01:21:15] It's still, we're struggling with when you have that much power. So it's just, yeah, it's part of the genre. It's baked into, it's a baked in question to the superhero world. Right. And that got me thinking, why is she holding on?

[01:21:31] What is the reason that she has this? Because she's not reformed. She hasn't gone on her redemption arc as far as I can tell. No, and she's just hiding out. She's just- Right. Right. She's withdrawn from the world, which is just as when you're hiding from the world,

[01:21:48] that's not doing the world any good or yourself any good, right? It may need a moment to take for yourself. That's fine. But yeah, that's not how to live. So are we seeing someone on the path of making a toning, right?

[01:22:07] As we're seeing with 2012 Loki, or are we seeing someone who is plotting and biding their time until they can- I think she's trying to figure it out. Regain- I think she's trying to figure it out. What they've lost. Yeah.

[01:22:23] I think we've talked over to Ahsoka because Ahsoka had a bunch to say about this as well. Becoming wholeness and toning and choices. Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, that's where I'm at with Sylvie, especially in the last shot of her after Jack leaves

[01:22:45] and she's just holding onto it and looking at it like- Can I play into Jean, your suspicious brain and point out that it's awfully convenient that these timelines are being pruned in terms of preventing this temporal meltdown that Obi is trying to put off? Oh, holy. You see?

[01:23:09] That's a nice catch. That's a nice catch. That's a nice catch. I didn't even think about that. Well, this goes into the thing that Sylvie says too. She says, the TVA is broken. It's the problem.

[01:23:22] And Loki in his argument to get her to get engaged was that the TVA is our only hope. You're my only hope, TVA. That it's actually the TVA that then ended up pruning all the timelines because Dox was doing her thing against judges' orders.

[01:23:45] But that is in sticking with Kang's or he who reigns or whatever we're calling his whole original mission. Yeah. Exactly. It was to preserve the one timeline because that one variant, that one out on the Kang Wars is... Right? That's the... Right. Right.

[01:24:03] And can we point out just to heat back up the ongoing what universe number are we in debate? They show the sacred timeline as being 616 in this show. So Sony brought up in the latest Spider-Verse movie, they called this universe 199999.

[01:24:21] So I'm wondering, here's my crazy crackpot theory, maybe Sony 199999 and MCU 616 are very close but not exactly the same universe. They're just next to each other. That's just my theory to make it work.

[01:24:43] But then what happens is this is comic book key, but we saw it in Multiverse of Madness when two universes get so close to each other, an incursion occurs and boom. So that would be insane, but really fun. It would be insane, but really fun.

[01:25:06] I would be down for that. How do you do that though? Boy... Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I would have to wrap my... Teeny movies, what? That's the beauty of comic books is that you can spiral off like that without a problem. Right?

[01:25:18] It could be part of Secret Wars. I'm curious how much the Sony side of things might be brought into Secret Wars. Yeah, it's too bad that shareholders would never go for a team up like that. Right? Well, I mean, they've been working together and borrowing actors and characters.

[01:25:39] So at least they've established the groundwork for that. Yeah, we can only hope for some cooperation. One quick little side note. Did you notice Sylvie's earring that she was wearing? Yeah. When they were standing in the TVA, it was a single earring of an Ankh.

[01:25:56] So weren't you guys talking about some Egyptian mythology last time with a Pharaoh? One of the Kang variants. Yeah. And he was also teased in, of course... Moon Knight. Okay, so there's a little Moon Knight. Yeah, there's a double reveal there. It's really not noticeable at all.

[01:26:18] It's when she pops into the TVA control room and Loki's talking to her and you can just see she's just got one single earring. Oh, I look at earrings. I noticed. Yeah, okay. I missed it on my first watch, but I picked it up on the second.

[01:26:31] Might she be working with Rama Tutt? Kang? Interesting. Because he's not the Kang that's got her on the run. She said she would kill... What if a variant pops up and she's like, I'll kill him? Which is a lot of bravado, but...

[01:26:46] Yeah, but he's not the Kang that's been chasing her for her entire life. He's not TVA Kang. Right. All right, so some fun things to keep our eyes out for in the rest of the season.

[01:27:00] I think the first note that I had was the needle drop, the song that was playing. What do they call it? Diegetic, where it's in universe thing. And then during the credits we actually hear the song and it's Cosmic Blues by Janis Joplin, published in 1969. Great song.

[01:27:19] And this was a famous song. It was off of her first album or an early performance when she... After she left or separated with Big Brother and the holding company. And I think one of the first performances of this song was at Woodstock.

[01:27:37] And it's a very famous song for folks who are really into Janis' whole thing, but it's a song about time and slipping away and questioning what happened to your friendships along the way. And I'll just read the first stanza, time keeps moving on, friends they turn away.

[01:27:59] I keep moving on, but I never found out why. I keep pushing too hard and babe, I keep trying to make it right through another lonely day. So this is really a perfect vibe for, I think what they're setting up for Sylvie.

[01:28:16] So yes, she's quote unquote happy working here in this branch timeline, but is she really? Is she lonely? Is she, she doesn't have community. She doesn't have, you know, there's something missing for her in her life and she's ruminating on it and she's thinking about it, right?

[01:28:33] And she's trying to work something out. So I think, I thought that was a really nice choice for the song. Yeah. Agree. Absolutely. All right. Well, I think that's the episode. You guys got any more notes? I'm just excited to hear Jean's comic corner. Okay. It sounds good.

[01:28:48] Let's take a quick break. We'll come back. We'll get into a comics corner and then we'll get into our one piece of feedback for this week and we'll be right back. Okay. And we're back. Jean, you have some comics corner insights for us. Yeah.

[01:29:23] So really quickly, X5, Brad Wolf, who's starring as Zaniac. So Zaniac is actually a Marvel comic book character who first appeared in the Thor. More Thor. Yeah. Thor. Who first appeared in Thor and Thor Marvels.

[01:29:46] But the interesting part of it is that Zaniac is actually like a otherworldly entity who serves Dormammu. Dormammu, which we saw in the first Doctor Strange movie, who wants to come back to Earth.

[01:30:06] He was expelled from Earth billions eons ago and from our plane of reality and is now in the dark dimension. So he sends this entity back to Earth in the 19th century to just wreak havoc on humanity. Right?

[01:30:26] And this entity takes on the persona of, he possesses Tom Malvern. This is late 1800s and Tom Malvern is a psychopath. Right? He's like, he's just a terrible person. Right? Tom Malvern then goes on to start killing women. He's a misogynistic piece of shit. Right? Right.

[01:31:05] And he starts to kill women in London. And what did you say? Where in London? Whitechapel. At least Whitechapel. So who is Tom Malvern, dear listeners? In Marvel comics, Tom Malvern is Jack the Ripper. Oh, okay. So he is a canon character in Marvel comics.

[01:31:34] Tom Malvern dies eventually and the entity just floats throughout time, biding his time, looking for another person to possess. And he comes to possess Brad Wolf, who is an actor. Brad Wolf is starring in a movie called Zaniac and there's an explosion and the costume that

[01:31:57] he's wearing melds to his body. Zaniac possesses, the entity possesses him, Brad Wolf, and we have the creature called Zaniac is born. So he wasn't Zaniac back in the 19th century. He's Zaniac only when he possesses Brad Wolf, who's playing the character Zaniac on screen.

[01:32:27] He becomes a Thor villain at this point because he tried to kill another woman. So this entity is definitely a misogynistic creature because he's trying to kill women throughout time. So now he tries to kill another Thor character. This is Dr. Donald Blake.

[01:32:50] There was a time in Thor comics where Odin, Thor's father, thought Thor was full of hubris. So he made him unable to be Thor at all times. He wrapped his persona in that of a human person, Dr. Donald Blake.

[01:33:09] And he could only become Thor when Dr. Donald Blake tapped his cane and transformed into Thor in times of need. Zaniac went to kill one of Donald Blake's associates and friends, Thor saved her, blah, blah, blah. That's how we get Zaniac in Marvel comics.

[01:33:33] Now many years after that first encounter, he goes on to try to kill Jane Foster, who Thor Lloyd is one of Thor's loves. And this is where Zaniac is defeated, finally. How is he defeated? With Thor? Someone from the TVA.

[01:33:57] Yes, the Time Variance Authority comes back in time because there is a future where Zaniac causes so much destruction that he destroys the universe, sets off the destruction of the universe. So he's come back in time to basically prune all Zaniacs from existence. Okay.

[01:34:21] This is some really deep stuff going on in this Loki series because we have so many tie-ins. You have Thor, you have the TVA, Jane Foster. There are so many levels to what they're doing in this show.

[01:34:41] And when I hadn't read this particular comic series until Alicia brought it up last week, I'm like, oh, wait a minute, Zaniac. Was it last week or was it when we were prepping for it? In our prep, I guess, probably.

[01:34:58] Yeah, it was probably in the prep for the season. So I went back and did the homework. And I was like, oh, wow. This is really something that I did not expect to see out of this season of Loki.

[01:35:13] It's a really deep dive in a character that is, I think, really interesting. I went back and I'm... Go ahead. How much of this do you think will carry over to our Brad Wolf in the show?

[01:35:25] I don't think it's going to carry over because if it does carry over, then it's opening up the Loki show to a whole other part of the Marvel universe, of the MCU. Because then we'd have to deal with, you know what?

[01:35:43] Let me think about it because it's magical. One thing I pointed out in the outro is there does seem to be a sling ring in the stuff they show us during the outro to the episodes. That's true. It's a magical creature. And Loki is a creature of magic.

[01:36:01] I don't know. I'm curious. Now I'm curious about that. Because I didn't think beforehand that they would be able to bring in the character because, you know, it's a Dark Dimension character. It's a Doctor Strange beginning of a character.

[01:36:21] Could Doctor Strange be the character that they weren't allowed to use in the show? That's what I'm saying because it is magical. And Loki is a creature of magic, right? So maybe it's not Thor. Maybe it's not Thor. Maybe it was one Doctor Strange.

[01:36:40] How would you feel, David, if the Loki plot took this twist with him being possessed by this dark side entity that makes him a killer? They'd have to be pretty careful with the plot though, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's a thin line that they're crossing there.

[01:37:00] Could you do the Doctor Strange crossover stuff with some sort of generic dark entity and then just using the Zeniak thing as a mechanism without going into Zeniak deeply maybe? I'm not versed well enough to theorycraft too much. That's often how they do it.

[01:37:23] They just simplify, which makes sense. Right. But you can give enough to comic book fans to have them engaged while at the same time for us non-comic book readers, for me, non-comic book reader. That seems like how they could smoosh it together. Okay, cool.

[01:37:43] Any more thoughts on that or is that you're going to maybe- No, that's my only thought. If you read Bearded Thor, because that was the time when Thor had a beard, hit me up. Well, that's a good transition to feedback.

[01:37:57] Remember you can send us feedback, mcu at thelorehounds.com. Head over to our website and there's a contact form and a voicemail feature like Michael used today. Of course, there's the Discord and there's links to all of those in the show notes.

[01:38:11] Okay, we've got one email from Abby this week. Abby, thanks for writing in. She says, greetings, Lorehounds. Another awesome episode, wasn't it? I agree. I think all around we were all very, very pleased.

[01:38:23] The consensus among some of my friends, fans of Loki seems to be yes, Loki is back with a full range of emotions Tom Hiddleston so masterfully expresses. We got some cool signature magic, taking no insults without repercussions, but this time

[01:38:39] with a more mature approach, more calculated versus flying into the uncontrolled rages we have seen in previous movies. He even got to do the friendly therapy session with Mobius. Yeah, what do you guys think about this? I think, have we seen a maturation with Loki?

[01:38:56] Have we seen some actual growth? Yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean, he's that line at the end, you know, it's harder to stay. That's a mature line. Yeah, it is. And when Brad's going at him, he doesn't lose it. He doesn't fly out of control.

[01:39:12] And even in the chase scenes, he, yes, exactly. Which is a nice counterpoint. And even in the London chase scene, he's pretty- He's in control. Yeah, he's in control. Yeah, totally. He's confident, yeah. For sure.

[01:39:24] One mission finding Sylvie is accomplished while the new crisis emerges with the branches bombed and OB having trouble with his device. It looked to me that in spite of the I'm happy line from Sylvie, she seems awfully lonely and sad as we are cued into by the music.

[01:39:42] She is in a much better place mentally, even if it hurts him to let her go. It's harder to stay, as Mobius puts it, a complicated relationship. Yeah, the finger right on the interesting part of the story here, which we really haven't

[01:39:55] got into, which is Loki and Sylvie and what that means and their relationship and being apart from each other and the music. So yeah, I think that's all spot on. Do you guys think that now that we've gotten Doc's issue sort of solved, now we have the

[01:40:15] bigger looming threat? But I somehow feel maybe what Abby's pointing to here is that the next phase of this storyline, this season is the Sylvie and Loki relationship. I don't know. Alicia, does that seem- Yeah, I mean, I'm all for the Sylvie-Loki relationship, the self-sessed or whatever.

[01:40:35] Right, exactly. Who can love yourself better than you? But yes, so I don't think this is going to turn into a romance, but I think that's always going to be a persistent theme going throughout the series, the relationship between these two. Right. As much as the relationship between...

[01:40:54] Well, because now Loki and Mobius, they sort of had their lover's rift, so to speak, in season one, and now that's kind of more ironed out. Right, for sure. Jean, do you think we're going to see more Sylvie and Loki? Yeah, but I think as opposites. Okay.

[01:41:10] She's got some dark purpose, some terrible purpose. What was the first episode? What's his, I've been burdened with terrible purpose? Glorious. Glorious purpose. Glorious. All right, maybe I'm twisting it into terrible purpose, but glory, terror, you know. Fine line. Yeah, exactly.

[01:41:27] I think this is, again, this is Loki 2012, Loki finding himself and trying to atone in his own ways. I just don't think Sylvie is there yet, and I think that's going to cause some level of friction between the two.

[01:41:47] I think the fact that she has he who remains little pad, that definitely is pointing to the fact that she's got a dark road to travel before the season's over. That's power, that's a lot of power in that little thing, and she's not in a good mental

[01:42:07] framework to be having that thing, right? Well, it's trauma, right? It's trauma. It's trauma from what the TVA has put her through, but also I think it's also recognizing what she herself has done.

[01:42:23] She sees this other version of herself and staring at her and trying to be, I don't want to say a better version of oneself, but just trying to come to grips with the things that they have done. Yeah, yeah. And that she's done.

[01:42:42] I mean, she killed over 400 hunters, right? And those are ultimately just people who have been ripped out of their own timelines. So it's a really messy moral situation. Right. Abby continues, this episode really packed a punch. I hope no one is complaining about pacing. Mayor Culpa, Mayor Culpa.

[01:42:59] I'm not complaining, no, no. The way all of the production just flawlessly ties together is great. Set design always excellent in queuing up the mood of scenes and the music even more so. A hundred percent agree with that. Hard agree.

[01:43:14] Shout out to the production designer, Kasra Farhani and composer Natalie Holt again for doing really amazing work. So Abby wraps it up. My personal favorite of this episode are the ever competent tech savvy protagonists and their connection, Casey and Ouroboros.

[01:43:33] Whatever happens, they need to get out of this unscathed or we riot. Except if Ouroboros is something- Is a villain. Is a villain. Yeah. Something more. Yeah. Something more. But maybe he's the machinery that just is designed to keep the certain parts of the

[01:43:53] TVA functioning and doesn't have a will of his own. Fair. But even if he is a villain, I still want to keep him. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I just hope he's a villain. For real. Looking forward to the next mission of finding Ravonna and the rogue AI, Miss Minutes.

[01:44:10] Understanding how the temporal aura works with the different variants. Is there any overlap? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Ever faithful listener, Abby. Thanks Abby. Thanks for being a faithful listener. Thanks for participating in all that you do. Pretty exciting to have this show. And it's great.

[01:44:26] Well, so she brings up an interesting point. So the temporal aura, does that mean that a different Kang variant could come and unlock it? Hmm. Right. Now, yeah, your temporal aura, the right temporal aura.

[01:44:42] So that would imply that the Kang that built the TVA is the only one, but we've seen other Kang variant? Wait. Okay. Now, my head is getting all timey-wimey. We don't really know yet. We've seen like a mural with a bunch of different Kang faces on a wall.

[01:44:57] So that kind of seems to have- But there was a statue at the end of season one, right? Right. So the triple goddess sort of style statue. Well, yeah. There were also in like the Citadel at the end of time, there were different Kangs it

[01:45:15] seems like, and at least one of them was crumbled. So maybe it was started by multiple Kangs or was it started by one of them and a Renslayer? So these are questions that I think we're going to get answered this season. We have questions.

[01:45:30] As always, if you have questions, send them into mcu at thelorhouse.com. To that, we just have to kind of remember that they're all Kang, but Kang at different times of his life. But it's also like they're all Kang the way that the Loki variants are all Loki.

[01:45:48] No. They're still different. No. No, because I think that a lot of them come from different timelines too is the implication. No. No? Nathaniel Richards is Kang, right? Yeah. Whenever you see a Kang, it's Nathaniel Richards at different points of his life. Yeah.

[01:46:09] Like he, that original character is not branching off to become someone else. Nathaniel Richards would exist on, if multiple timelines exist, he would exist on many of them at least the same way that the other characters do.

[01:46:24] I think we're going to have to take this to the director. We got to wrap up this episode. This is good. I mean, that's great that we're, this is what we want shows to do, right? Yeah. Right. Spark debate and conversation. All right.

[01:46:39] Quick shout outs for our programming schedule for Lorehounds. We're doing Loki, obviously week to week full season breakdown. We have some of our regularly scheduled programming. We've got Earthsea coming up. We've got a Silmarillion story coming up. What else have we got? No other Cornerstone shows.

[01:46:59] We're going to catch up on things like our Star Wars Film Festival with Return of the Jedi. We've got some crossover potential, Alicia, with you and John doing something on Fall of the House of Usher. I watched episode one last night with my spouse. Are you pretty psyched?

[01:47:17] Are you pretty psyched? Yeah, I'm pretty psyched. I've watched the first four episodes now and this, yeah, it could be a contender with Hill House for my favorite Mike Flanagan. Maybe overtake it, maybe, especially because I love Poe so much, but yeah, it's solid.

[01:47:31] And you were on Electric Boogaloo with Anthony talking a little bit about that and then you and he are having a more deeper conversation about George R. Martin's connections with Poe. Yeah. And then I think you and your sister? Yes. Are doing a pod? How's that?

[01:47:45] You guys teed up for that? Yeah, yeah. We're very excited. She's busy watching and yeah, we grew up watching horror movies together. And that'll be out on your Worship Dust feed? That's right. Yeah, later this month. Right.

[01:47:59] And then you and John are going to do a one shot on our feed, right? So we're going to tie up a whole bunch of Poe crossover things. So that sounds like a lot of fun. And what else you've got going on in Worship Dust? Yeah.

[01:48:11] Well, the book club is kicking back off. There will be a special Halloween treat for subscribers and that's a little free extra. And then also Abby, who we just heard from is going to be joining me to cover the books of Hugh Howey.

[01:48:28] And we're going to start actually with Beacon 23 because of the new adaptation that's starting in November that Luke and I will be covering in the public feed. And then Abby and I will be continuing with the Silo series. Very cool. Good stuff. Properly Howard movie review.

[01:48:43] They're wrapping up their season over there of movie remakes. They should have the Sorcerer will be their last movie. Just recently they covered The Thing, Cape Fear, The Departed. Go check out their feed for that list of movies. Very funny. Good stuff.

[01:49:02] Steve is a standup comic and Anthony is an academic and they have a very funny time on their podcasts. A lot of fun pop culture nonsense and deep dives into actors and characters and directors. You don't have to be a cinemaphile to enjoy what they've got.

[01:49:18] You don't even have to have seen the movie. Did anybody catch up with The Thing podcast by chance? Not yet. Okay. Not yet. Yeah. My podcast list is out of control, but I'm actually listening through their older Cocoons of Horror stuff, which I really am enjoying.

[01:49:33] Good October fare. Yeah. That's all there on the feed. Yeah. And I just finished listening to you guys on Wheel of Time. Oh yeah. That's right. Yeah. I'm listening to you guys on Wheel of Time. We love time. Hi David. What's up? How are you doing David?

[01:49:49] I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. Just trying to be an honest broker of my feelings. Hey, hey, hey. That's fair. That's what it's about. That's what it's about. That's right. And it's hard. I was actually listening to the Bald Move guys talk about this with their Ahsoka wrap

[01:50:05] up that when you are critical, you may be like critical to 20%, but it sounds like 80%. Right? There's something about the way that we're sharing our opinions in this medium where it can feel a little bit stronger than it might be.

[01:50:22] And so it's a difficult balance to have criticism that doesn't sound like overblown, just outright negativity. Right? Right. So there's that balance. I guess especially contrasted with John and I gushing. Yes. Especially with y'all gushing.

[01:50:38] You guys are, I see some very high rankings for Wheel of Time in your end of year lists. Absolutely. I think what we are going to do is probably get all of our co-hosts and we'll do something

[01:50:52] like our birthday celebration where we talk to everybody for a quick few minutes. And I think what we'll do is like a top three or a top five from all of our co-hosts.

[01:51:01] So start working on your lists and then we'll include those in our end of year second breakfast. Quick shout out to our Lore Master Patreon supporters. Real quick note about Patreon too. They just went through a huge brand overhaul. They've refreshed the website. The app is changed.

[01:51:20] They're adding a whole bunch of features. So there's some cool stuff there that it's not just a surface level thing. It's actually some pretty deep changes. One of the things is that you can get a free membership, which means that you can follow

[01:51:32] us and you'll get notifications and updates when we post things. So if that works for you, you can just click on that and that way you can kind of stay abreast. Otherwise, we have free seven day trials that you can check us out if you're interested

[01:51:48] to seeing what kind of content we have. And we have annual memberships available. So if any of those things work for you or help you, great. And if not, cool. Just keep listening on the public feeds. Quick shout out to our top tier subscribers, our Lore Masters.

[01:52:01] We have Simartian, Cyrus, Mark H, Michael G, Michelle E, David W, Brian P, Nick W, SC, Peter OH, Bettina W, Adam S, Nancy M, Lavinia T, Dove 71, Brian 8063, Frederick H, Sarah L, Gareth C, Eric F, Matthew M, Sarah M, DJ Miwa, Andra B, Guang Yu, Laura G, Deadeye

[01:52:26] Bob, Nathan T, Alex V, Aaron T, Sub Zero and Adrian. Thank you all so very much for your continued support. Thank you to all our Patreon subscribers. Alicia, Jean, thanks so very much for being together again on something that's finally exciting and I think we're all very happy.

[01:52:45] I see your smiling faces on the video. So yeah, that's good. We will. Yes, Loki makes me happy. Excellent. We will see you next week. Thanks everyone. Take care. The Lore Hounds Podcast is produced and published by the Lore Hounds.

[01:53:02] You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com contact. Get early and ad free access to all Lore Hounds podcasts at patreon.com slash thelorehounds. Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities.

[01:53:29] Okay David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side, green or black. Jon, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life. So we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to like pick sides and fight and stuff.

[01:53:48] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod, but we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore. It was made for the Lore Hounds.

[01:54:00] And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the dance of the dragons. And with the season pass option in Supercast, listeners can get early ad free access to

[01:54:11] each weekly scene by scene deep dive plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lore Hounds podcast feed each week for our dragon fire hot, but probably positive takes.

[01:54:24] The Lore Hounds House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a heartened conflict with itself and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin.

[01:54:33] Dragon seeds may experience burning.